Letter to Mrs. Bixby
The letter to Mrs. Bixby is a letter from Abraham Lincoln , the 16th President of the United States , to Lydia Bixby, mother of five sons who, at the time of writing, were believed to have all died during the Civil War .
The trigger for Lincoln's letter was a letter that John A. Andrew , Governor of Massachusetts , had addressed to Lincoln in 1864, in the middle of the American Civil War, in which he reported about the widow Lydia Bixby, who should have lost five of her sons in the war. In response, Lincoln wrote the following lines to the grieving mother:
original
"Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln "
translation
“White House,
Washington, November 21, 1864
Ladies and gentlemen,
from the records of the Department of War I was presented with a statement from the Massachusetts Adjutant General that you are the mother of five sons who died gloriously on the battlefield.
I can sense how weak and futile each of my words must be, the purpose of which is to help you get over the pain of such an overwhelming loss. However, as a consolation, I cannot help but thank the republic for whose salvation they gave their lives.
I pray that our Heavenly Father will alleviate the agony of your painful loss and that He will leave you the bronze memory of your loved ones who have died and your sacred pride in making such a great sacrifice on the altar of freedom.
Yours sincerely, your very devoted
A. Lincoln "
However, since Mrs. Bixby was a supporter of the Confederate States of America , Lincoln's opponents of war, she destroyed the letter shortly after receiving it. It has come down to us through a print in the newspaper "Boston Evening Transcript" .
Only later did it emerge that only two of the five sons, Charles and Oliver, had died. One of the other three deserted , another was honorably discharged and one is said to have either deserted as well or died as a prisoner of war.
Today some scholars believe that the letter to Mrs. Bixby was written not by Abraham Lincoln, but by his secretary John Hay .
References to the letter
- On the statue of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is the following quote from the letter: "The solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom" .
- In Steven Spielberg's film , Saving Private Ryan , General George C. Marshall (played by Harve Presnell ) quotes the letter in his own letter to Mrs. Ryan.
- On the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, George W. Bush read this letter during a memorial service at the new National September 11 Memorial and Museum .